John Thomson Boyd

In memoriam

John Thomson Boyd was born in Glasgow and served as a pre-war regular soldier with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers (KOSBs). He had reached the rank of sergeant when he answered the call for volunteers on the formation of the 1st Parachute Brigade in 1941 and, after completion of the selection process at Hardwick Hall, was posted to the 2nd Parachute Battalion then in the process of forming up, and assigned to C Company. C Coy had been nicknamed Jock’s Company as most of the soldiers posted to it were from Scottish regiments. Along with other members of C Coy, he attended parachute training at RAF Ringway in December 1941. He returned to Ringway with C Coy for the brigade’s first advanced training course involving a night descent from a balloon and aircraft descents with arms containers in January 1942. Shortly after returning from advanced training, C Coy began intense training and preparation for the Bruneval Raid, a daring parachute operation into enemy occupied France to capture components from a German Würzburg radar installation. He suffered a gunshot wound to his left foot during the raid on 28th February 1942, while serving as a member of Drake Section under the command of Lt Peter Naumoff, but was evacuated successfully from the beach. After attending No 106 Officer Cadet Training Unit, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant (264618) in the King’s Own Scottish Borderers on 20th April 1943. He was posted to the 5th (Scottish) Parachute Battalion and saw action in Italy from September 1943. He was posted to the 1st (Independent) Parachute Platoon when it expanded in January 1944, and took charge of 2 Section. On 15th August 1944 he deployed with the pathfinder platoon for Operation Dragoon in Southern France. He later took part in Operation Manna, the campaign to liberate Greece from German forces in the autumn of 1944, and was killed in Athens during the ensuing troubles with the Greek communist forces.

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